The “Mormon Mask?” Ctd

Your fact-checker is indeed speaking of a different generation. I grew up in Mitt's era in a family of Book of Mormon believers. We had a library of books at home, most from LDS sources, that clearly assumed that all Native Americans were part of the "Lost Tribes of Israel." Indeed, one of the first missionary trips of the fledgling LDS church in the early 1830s was to "the Lamanites," their name for the Native American tribes that they encountered west of Independence, Missouri.

The LDS church is trying to re-write their history in this regard.

Another is far more blunt:

I can't say I'm a practicing Mormon, or an ex-Mormon, or an expert on Mormons. So I may be totally off base here. But … I can only quote their text, the Book of Mormon. From the first book, chapter 12. I don't even have to reference the Skeptics Annotated version. I can go right to the LDS website! And what does their holy book say about Native Americans?

23 And it came to pass that I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a adark, and loathsome, and a bfilthy people, full of cidleness and all manner of abominations.

As a Mormon and a historian, your reader ought to read his own text, and then should be able to explain and defend how it is utterly and completely racist. Mormons certainly believe that Native Americans were here with the white folks from Jerusalem, but they also believe they killed off the whites and were cursed for their actions with dark skin.